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M&A BET Up for Sale Tyler Perry, Byron Allen eye the brand p. 18 Box Office Churn ’Em Out! Theater chains ask for 100-plus titles a year p. 14 Ellen Stutzman With David Young bowing out for medical reasons, the longtime Writers Guild exec will take over as chief negotiator with studios while strike rumblings loom. Guy Ritchie Miramax and Lionsgate had to be hoping for more from the director as his latest caper, Operation Fortune, bows to just $3.1 million domestically from 2,100 theaters. Malcolm D. Lee The director extended a first-look deal at Universal TV after The Best Man: The Final Chapters streamed on Peacock as the platform’s top-viewed series premiere to date. John Malone The billionaire settles with Charter to the tune of $87 million over a…
When Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel opened his company’s earnings call with prepared remarks Feb. 28, a casual listener hearing him tout the UFC and WME might have missed the most interesting part: Emanuel wasn’t speaking at all. Well, he sort of was. The words were his, and the voice was his, but rather than Emanuel speaking into a microphone (opening remarks on earnings calls are often pretaped), the comments were the product of a generative artificial intelligence firm called Speechify. So why did Ari Emanuel (er, “AI Emanuel”?) use his company’s fourth-quarter earnings call to bring machine learning to its financial report? “We’re in business with them, we think they’re a really good company,” Emanuel said of Speechify (and yes, Endeavor disclosed in its earnings press release that the comments…
MGM’s movie studio has delivered its first knockout punch at the box office since being absorbed by Amazon Studios, creating a unique situation whereby a streamer is now flexing its muscle in the same theatrical ring that streamers have been accused of trying to harm. Over the March 3-5 weekend, Michael B. Jordan’s Creed III debuted to a rousing $58.4 million domestically, the biggest opening of the series, as well as the biggest start ever for a Hollywood sports film, not adjusted for inflation. Creed III caps months of speculation as to what MGM’s film operation will look like in the Amazon era. The ecommerce giant closed its $8.45 billion deal to buy the storied studio nearly a year ago, but it wasn’t until now that the picture became more…
After a disappointing late summer and fall, major movie theater chains pinned hopes on a run of tentpoles that could help prop up the box office — and their bottom lines — from Black Adam to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Avatar: The Way of Water. But, one by one, in reporting fourth-quarter earnings in February and early March, the top chains all posted revenue that fell short of even the comparable quarter in 2021, when the industry was in the thick of the pandemic. While the impact of The Way of Water, the $2.2 billion grosser that opened Dec. 16, won’t be fully felt until exhibitors report first-quarter results in the spring, the fourth-quarter numbers aren’t encouraging. That’s especially so when studio executives, from Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David…
As Broadway moves toward its busy spring season, star power has returned to the Great White Way and boosted box offices in the process. After making her Broadway debut in 2012, Jessica Chastain is back to star as Nora Helmer in A Doll’s House. The classic Henrik Ibsen play, which was adapted by Amy Herzog and directed by Jamie Lloyd, began previews at the Hudson Theatre on Feb. 13 and has played to nearly full houses so far, minting a strong $811,261 in its first full week of performances. The musical Parade, starring Ben Platt, began previews Feb. 21 at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre and played to more than 100 percent capacity (including standing-room tickets), bringing in just above $587,000 in its first four preview performances. This came as…
In the latest twist in its lengthy development résumé, The Devil in the White City, the limited series from producers Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio, is no longer moving forward at Hulu. However, sources tell THR that producer ABC Signature remains committed to the drama and will be shopping the show to new outlets. The news comes months after leading man Keanu Reeves and director Todd Field (Tár) dropped out of the drama in October. Sources say Hulu and Paramount Television Studios and Disney’s ABC Signature, who together were on board to produce the series, had been in talks with The Bear star Jeremy Allen White and Jude Law and director Matt Ross for the project. White, Law and Ross are still in talks for it, sources say, though it’s…
